Italian Serie A

2025-08-23 - AS Roma vs Bologna

A Sports Betting Pick by Cafa

Roma v Bologna
Italy Serie A - Round 1
Stadio Olimpico, Rome, Lazio, Italy (70,634)
Saturday, 23 August 2025, 20:45 CET
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Roma Team News

Roma, now coached by Gian Piero Gasperini after mister Claudio Ranieri said his final goodbye to football by stabilizing this troubled side, is in rebuild mode. Paulo Dybala is still here as the sole star player, potentially helped by Matias Soule on the right wing, but there’s no striker. Artem Dovbyk is not it, and neither is 20-year-old Evan Ferguson, who scored once in 13 appearances for Brighton in the Premier League last term. Unless Gasperini can invent a forward player out of nothing, Roma will find it very difficult to score and is in for a long and tiresome season - again.

But this is a very thin squad, with a grand total of seven midfielders and six wingers or forwards. Frankly, Gasperini doesn’t seem like a good fit for what Roma has in the locker room. Gasperini is an offensive coach, but in this side there are very few offensive weapons. A defensive mastermind who’d go on to win 1-0 would be a much better fit for this selection of players.

Roma was troubled last season, Roma was troubled the season before, but the roster never looked this depleted of players who might - if you’re lucky - step up and make things happen. This Roma team isn’t going anywhere but the middle of the table, and they likely won’t even make it to the Europa League spot. You’d need a Claudio Ranieri to lead them there.

Expect a 7th- or 8th-place finish unless something drastically changes or/and unless Gasperini is so good that he can make any team play fluent offensive football. Expect Roma to still be a powerhouse at home, though, as they’ve always been. Roma to win at home when favoured is one of the cornerstones of betting on Serie A.

Bologna Team News

Bologna showed us two very similar faces in their breakthrough season 2023/24 and the one where they were expected to get reduced to a bottom half team but refused to, and finished 9th against all odds, having competed for European spots all the way until the final few rounds.

This season, Bologna hardly invested in star players - but maybe they produce a star here and there out of all these signings, as they are known to do. Their most expensive transfer in was Martin Vitik, a centre-back from Sparta Prague, whom they’ve bought for €11m. Quite a lot for a defender. They also brought in Torbjorn Heggern and Nicolo Casale, two more centre-backs, for €7.50m and €6.50m respectively.

In offense, everything will revolve around Santiago Castro, now 20, who had 8 goals and 5 assists in 36 appearances for Bologna last season. Benja Dominguez is also growing up, he’s now 21 and we’re waiting for his real impact on the left wing, while Ricardo Orsolini is on the right. That’s a good offense right there, with two more players on each position waiting to come in if necessary.

Bologna has a clear game plan that was proven to work in this league over the course of the last two seasons, and you can expect more of the same. Last season’s 47 goals conceded were an anomaly, and the investment in defenders will aim to reduce it a bit closer to the 32 goals that were conceded the year before. But that was a special side, under Thiago Motta’s revolutionary tactics. Bologna could concede maybe 40 this season, at best.

If you’d exclude the three defeats near the end of the season, when Bologna stopped caring and when they lost to Atalanta, Milan and Fiorentina, this side would have had only 3 away defeats in the entire season. At home, they lost twice.

So, don’t forget that Bologna does not lose much – it takes a really special effort to defeat them, whether they play at home or on the road. Bologna is the king of draws, and will likely continue to be in 2025/26.

Probable Lineups

(to be updated 24h prior to kick off)

The Betting Market

Roma is priced at 2.10, which is pretty much at the higher end of Roma home prices that you get in this league. Under 2.5 Goals is the favoured outcome at 1.72, with 2.10 for the Over, while the BTTS market is evenly split at 1.90.

The Betting Verdict

As tempting as it may be to bet on Roma, simply because it’s Roma, if you looked at the rosters blindly you’d hardly make such a bet. Bologna is a more composed side that can control a game, whereas Roma will attempt to play offensively here but it might be at their own peril.

The 2.10 on Roma is actually a fair price, the bookmakers and everyone else seem to be aware that the draw is the most likely outcome here. We’ll just take the Double Chance on Bologna, or Asian Handicap +0.5, whichever price is higher.